DAKOTA Reference Manual

Version 4.2

Author:

Michael S. Eldred, Brian M. Adams, Karen Haskell, William J. Bohnhoff, John P. Eddy, David M. Gay, William E. Hart, Patricia D. Hough, Tamara G. Kolda, Laura P. Swiler, Jean-Paul Watson

Main Page Table of Contents

• Introduction
• Input Specification Reference
• Additional Resources

Introduction

The DAKOTA (Design Analysis Kit for Optimization and Terascale Applications) toolkit provides a flexible, extensible interface between analysis codes and iteration methods. DAKOTA contains algorithms for optimization with gradient and nongradient-based methods, uncertainty quantification with sampling, reliability, and stochastic finite element methods, parameter estimation with nonlinear least squares methods, and sensitivity/variance analysis with design of experiments and parameter study capabilities. These capabilities may be used on their own or as components within advanced strategies such as surrogate-based optimization, mixed integer nonlinear programming, or optimization under uncertainty. By employing object-oriented design to implement abstractions of the key components required for iterative systems analyses, the DAKOTA toolkit provides a flexible problem-solving environment as well as a platform for rapid prototyping of new solution approaches.

The Reference Manual focuses on documentation of the various input commands for the DAKOTA system. It follows closely the structure of dakota.input.txt, the master input specification summary. For information on software structure, refer to the Developers Manual, and for a tour of DAKOTA features and capabilities, refer to the Users Manual [Eldred et al., 2007].

Input Specification Reference

In the DAKOTA system, the strategy creates and manages iterators and models. A model contains a set of variables, an interface, and a set of responses, and the iterator operates on the model to map the variables into responses using the interface. In a DAKOTA input file, the user specifies these components through strategy, method, model, variables, interface, and responses keyword specifications. The Reference Manual closely follows this structure, with introductory material followed by detailed documentation of the strategy, method, model, variables, interface, and responses keyword specifications:

Introduction

Strategy Commands

Method Commands

Model Commands

Variables Commands

Interface Commands

Responses Commands

Additional Resources

A bibliography for the Reference Manual is provided in:

Bibliography

Project web pages are maintained at http://www.cs.sandia.gov/DAKOTA with software specifics and documentation pointers provided at http://www.cs.sandia.gov/DAKOTA/software.html, and a list of publications provided at http://www.cs.sandia.gov/DAKOTA/references.html

---